The Institute of Space Systems in Bremen designs and analyses future spacecraft and space missions (launchers, orbital and exploration systems, and satellites), and assesses them with regard to their technical performance and cost. It applies state-of-the-art methods of multi-disciplinary engineering in system design and analysis – for example, a computerised system for concurrent design.

It was a day full of exciting moments and a happy team of scientists and engineers: late in the afternoon of 3 October 2018, the German-French lander MASCOT completed its historic exploration of the surface of the asteroid Ryugu at 21:04 CEST, as its battery ran out. On-asteroid operations were originally scheduled to last 16 hours after separation from the Japanese mothercraft Hayabusa2. But in the end, the battery lasted more than 17 hours.

The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR), and Teledyne Brown Engineering presented the first images of the DESIS hyperspectral Earth observation instrument at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC). The instrument was mounted to the exterior of the International Space Station on 27 August 2018.

If everything goes according to plan, the moment will finally come on 3 October 2018. Early in the morning, at 03:58:15 CEST, the asteroid lander MASCOT will separate from the Hayabusa2 space probe and land on the surface of Ryugu a few minutes later. From the first moment of contact with the surface, this will be a journey into the unknown, as MASCOT could come to rest almost anywhere within a radius of about 200 metres from the point of touchdown, after bouncing a few times.

The Antarctic greenhouse EDEN-ISS has weathered the polar night – as well as Antarctic storms and temperatures below minus 40 degrees Celsius – in its practical test under the direction of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR). It has been yielding herbs, lettuce and freshly harvested vegetables to the 10-member overwintering crew in the Alfred Wegener Institute’s Neumayer Station III for the first time since the beginning of 2018.